


The Very Worst

by Sunnyskywalker



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family Secrets, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Guilt, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 23:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnyskywalker/pseuds/Sunnyskywalker
Summary: "Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside... Everyone’s worst fear... the very worst." And Arthur can never tell anyone the worst part of all.





	The Very Worst

“Another transfer request, Arthur? I thought you were getting on well in Games and Sports.”  


Arthur smiled cheerily as he handed the personnel witch his paperwork. “Oh, I am! I just like to keep active. Learn new things, new skills, you know?”  


She raised an eyebrow, but said, “Well, I’ll see what’s available.”  


Molly didn’t understand, of course. She’d accepted his first lateral transfer as an attempt to gain new skills and contacts to climb the ladder, but by the fifth, she’d long since stopped accepting that excuse. “How can you ever expect to be more than a low-level clerk if you keep bouncing around like a Quaffle?” she would ask. She didn’t understand, and he couldn’t tell her.

* * *

The day Gideon and Fabian died had started like any other. The kids were running around noisily, newborn Ginny was wailing, Gideon and Fabian had unexpectedly popped over for breakfast, and poor Molly hadn’t slept in a week. Arthur volunteered to feed the chickens and collect eggs before heading off to work.  


He rather liked the job, actually. It gave him a few minutes of quiet to prepare for the day. Sometimes, like that morning, he would find himself absently holding the egg basket and staring into space, feeling blissfully relaxed.  


That sense of peace made him all the more sorry for how Molly was run off her feet. “Listen,” he told her, “why don’t you take the children to your parents’ for the morning? Take a friend out to Madam Puddifoot’s for tea, maybe. When was the last time you saw Beth Macmillan?”  


“Oh, I don’t know…”  


“No, I insist. You need a break.” He kissed her nose.  


“Are you sure?” She glanced at her brothers.  


“Mum and Dad will love having the kids over!” Gideon said.  


“And don’t worry about a thing. We’ll work on that addition and then make lunch for everyone,” Fabian added.  


Even the prospect of her little brothers bashing about her kitchen didn’t deter Molly in the end. She truly did need a morning off. Besides, they really could use the help adding the extra bedroom. It was just too crowded now that Ginny had arrived.  


The morning passed uneventfully—lots of paperwork and making tea for his superiors—until Molly arrived to meet him. Arthur smiled to see her looking pink and happy. It made him want to delay the time until she had to step back into the chaos at home.  


“Why don’t we Apparate to the old tree and walk up the lane instead of Flooing straight home?” he said. “I fancy a walk after being shut up in here all morning.”  


For the first moment after they appeared by the tree, it felt almost like their courting days again. Then Molly looked toward the house and screamed.  


A sickly green skull and snake glittered above the Burrow. The Dark Mark.  


“Molly, wait!”  


He had to hold her back from running to her brothers before he could summon the Aurors. She was so brave, and he’d bet on her against any single Death Eater, but he couldn’t risk losing her.  


Arthur’s knees nearly gave out when Alastor Moody finally limped into his office, where they had been left waiting, and he found out how close a call they’d had. Five Death Eaters, all still on the scene. He and Molly would have been slaughtered.  


“All killed or in custody. They sent the Dark Mark up too early, before the fight was over, or we’d never have caught them.”  


“And my brothers? Where are my brothers?”  


The pity on Moody’s scarred face said it all. When Moody wouldn’t say exactly how Gideon and Fabian had died, Molly collapsed, sobbing, into Arthur’s arms. Not the Killing Curse, then. Something worse. Something that would require closed caskets at the funeral. It was lucky Molly and the children hadn’t been home at the time.  


Arthur wanted to crawl into bed and stay there for a week, but he had to be strong. For Molly. If only he could have done something earlier. He felt he should have known, somehow, should have done more to protect them all.  


Then came the chilly morning of November first. He was feeding the chickens again. This time, instead of that peaceful feeling, a sudden dread hit him in the gut. It felt as if some protection had been ripped away.  


Molly ran out to tell him the news from the wireless: You-Know-Who had been defeated, possibly driven off forever, no one knew how, by the Potter baby. It was over. They were safe.  


He didn’t tell her about the gnawing dread that they weren’t, that something was still very wrong. Why trouble her over a baseless fear?  
But he wasn’t at all surprised when Moody and another Auror showed up a week later. “Just Ministry business, nothing to worry about,” they told Molly, but Arthur knew better.  


Some paperwork had gone missing, they explained after they'd let him "soften up" in Azkaban for a few hours. Some had been copied and fallen into the wrong hands. An ambassador whose schedule was in one of the copied papers had died, ambushed by Death Eaters. They had been investigating everyone who had access, and there was only one person linking every incident.  


“I don’t remember,” he said over and over. “I don’t remember anything. I didn’t know.”  


It felt like days, but in the end, they released him after a few hours. Crouch didn’t even bother to look in on the questioning. Bigger fish, no doubt. Moody was satisfied that Arthur had been under the Imperius Curse. He showed signs of being subjected to several Memory Charms as well. It wasn’t his fault.  


“I should have fought it somehow,” Arthur said after Moody Apparated them to the lane near the Burrow. “I should have done something.”  


“I think you did,” Moody said. “I didn’t want to mention it on Ministry premises. Others might not see it the way I do. But I know you were genuinely cursed, unlike that Malfoy scum, and you have to know. It’s important to know so you can be vigilant in the future.”  


Arthur’s mouth went dry. “What do you mean?”  


Moody’s glass eye fixed on him, giving him the disconcerting feeling that it could see right through him. “What made you decide Molly and the children should be out of the house that morning?”

* * *

“Here, we have one opening,” the personnel witch said. “Maybe. The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. They’re considering not even filling the third position, but Morris is due for retirement soon, so they’ll be able to cut down to two then.”  


Muggle artifacts. That sounded harmless enough. “That means room to move up when he retires, right? I’ll take the application.”  


She looked at him doubtfully. “It’s a tiny office.”  


“I don’t mind it cozy.”  


“They’ll move it to a tinier one when Morris retires.”  


“Well, that only makes sense, doesn’t it?”  


“Do you know anything about Muggle artifacts?”  


Arthur pasted on his cheeriest smile. “Like I said, I love learning new things.”  


Moody said they might have been after Gideon and Fabian because they were in the Order of the Phoenix, or they might have targeted the whole family for being perceived as blood-traitors. But Arthur knew.  


If he hadn’t been in a position to access so many important papers, they never would have targeted him. If they hadn’t targeted him, they might not have bothered with his family in the first place. Kept their attention on bigger fish. Had they thought he would throw himself into his work if his family died? Rise higher, learn more secrets, in an attempt to avenge them? Whatever their motives, he was sure it was his fault somehow.  


“The protective enchantments on your house weren’t broken,” Moody had told him. “They were lifted. Now we know how.”  


_No._  


“But they must not have given specific enough orders. You resisted. You got most of your family safely out of the house.”  


_No._  


“You even thought to take the long way home instead of Flooing directly into the crime scene. That’s more than most people could do under a curse that powerful, Arthur. But you see how others might interpret your actions differently.”  


Molly didn’t understand, and he couldn’t tell her. But he could transfer departments every time he started learning too much. You-Know-Who would be back someday, and so many of his followers were still at large. Arthur wouldn’t ever let himself be a valuable target again.  


Then maybe his family would be safe.


End file.
